


A thought about Wisteria Lodge  ("Don't be alarmed; it's to do with sex.")

by daisynorbury



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Literary Theory, Meta, Metafiction, Other, Story: The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, literary criticism, non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisynorbury/pseuds/daisynorbury
Summary: I have a theory about what Wisteria Lodge really means. I think it's social satire masquerading as a murder mystery.





	A thought about Wisteria Lodge  ("Don't be alarmed; it's to do with sex.")

There aren't any pictures in this, but you might consider the content NSFW, or at least NSFminors. If you’re under the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction, leave now.

Warnings: sex, kink, and puritanical attitudes and morality. This is an unorthodox (and wildly speculative) queer/kink/bdsm interpretation of a nice, respectable Victorian mystery story. If you want your Conan Doyle to remain something appropriate for your whole family, maybe don’t read this.

\------------------------------------------------- 

Still reading?

Okay then. Here’s what I think.  
(Though I know enough not to necessarily _believe_ what I think.)

_The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles_ was intended to be taken at face value. All it does is lay out the facts as JSE experienced them. We (Holmes, Baynes, the reader) are then left with the task of accounting for the murder of Garcia and the disappearance of his household.

But _The Tiger of San Pedro_... is a smokescreen. It’s the fit-for-public-consumption, culturally-acceptable, puritanical-heterosexual “solution” to a crime that very much wasn’t. It’s the explanation you publish in _The Strand_ because you think your readers Can’t Handle The Truth. And the story’s outrageous racism, xenophobia, and political melodrama are a satire of the absurd, fear-mongering justifications and cover stories that self-appointed arbiters of morality in positions of power have been (and still very much are) concocting to cover the truth for… I don’t know how long. Probably forever. Because won’t somebody please think of the children? The public must be protected! From sex, and specifically the non-procreative kind. You know: the kind that’s for fun and pleasure. The kind that doesn’t care much about your repressive, patriarchal religion. The kind that is everywhere, all the time, because as long as there have been human beings, there have been queer people, sexual appetites, “non-standard” sexual appetites, sex toys, and erotica. And I suspect that kink and kink-shaming have been bumbling along together, side by side in the same societies, hand-in-latex-gloved-hand, for a very long time. (Disagree? You might like to investigate [this documentary](http://icarusfilms.com/if-sm) about the history of the suppression of erotic art. I haven’t found it on youtube, but there’s a dvd copy at my local library. There might be one at yours, too.)

Further general warning: if you think you might not like where this is going, stop reading now, because I have some pretty scandalous ideas about 1890’s Esher. Inexcusable, really.

It feels to me like Conan Doyle is saying, “Look, idiots, the truth is staring you in the face, but you refuse to acknowledge the evidence that's right before your eyes because God forbid gay people might actually exist and have sex lives right in your own quiet, respectable, English-country back gardens, even with your own quiet, respectable, English-country neighbors.” Because God forbid. 

I don’t know all of what Burnet’s story means, but I think Henderson (Don Murillo) was intended to represent blackmailers in general, or maybe a specific, very successful one who had no qualms about ruining people’s careers/families/lives by exposing their secrets if they didn’t pay up. In my framework, Holmes represents savvy, in-the-know queer-and/or-kinky _Strand_ readers, Watson is the straight, “general public” _Strand_ readers, Baynes is establishment CID, Burnet is the wives and families of men whose lives were devastated by blackmailers, and San Pedro is, for lack of a better term, the “queer community”. (Maybe because St. Peter is famous for repeatedly denying that he was friends with Jesus?) ‘Cause, see, ACD doesn’t seem to have employed fictional countries in his stories much otherwise. To name just a few: Abe Slaney (DANC) and John Hebron (YELL) were from the United States, Jack Woodley (SOLI) was from South Africa, Pietro Venucci (SIXN) was from Naples, Tonga (SIGN) was from the Andaman Islands, Leon Sterndale (DEVI) found the devil’s-foot root in the Ubangi Province (Zaire), Culverton Smith (DYIN) obtained his lethal fever germs in Sumatra, the blue carbuncle (BLUE) was found on the banks of the Amoy (now romanized to Xiamen) River in Fujian in China... Those are all real places. But San Pedro isn’t a country anywhere in Latin America and, as far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong), never has been. It’s a fantasy. And when Holmes and Watson and their associates read or talk about specific books (as far as I know, but again, please correct me if you know better (my knowledge of canon is spotty at best)), they're usually about real books that actually exist. But this “Eckermann’s _Voodooism and the Negroid Religions_ ”? Nope. Fake. Another fantasy. Holmes supports his voodoo-practitioners theory with a book that never existed.

Other things that strike me as likely:

1\. Garcia and his “cook” (the “mulatto”) were in a D/s relationship. The third housemate was also involved in some way.  
2\. Wisteria Lodge was the family home of Garcia’s gay polycule, and included their happy family kink dungeon.  
3\. Regarding the “artifacts” in the kitchen:

_“It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been. One could but say that it was black and leathery and that it bore some resemblance to a dwarfish, human figure. At first, as I examined it, I thought that it was a mummified negro baby, and then it seemed a very twisted and ancient monkey. Finally I was left in doubt as to whether it was animal or human. A double band of white shells were strung round the centre of it.”_

That’s a gimp suit. With chains. Or some other kind of restraint clothing/device.

_“The limbs and body of some large, white bird, torn savagely to pieces with the feathers still on, were littered all over it. Holmes pointed to the wattles on the severed head. ‘A white cock," said he. "Most interesting! It is really a very curious case.’”_

A disembodied cock? With “wattles on its severed head”? Do I even need to explain?  
Strap-on. Dildo. With flanges. Maybe a harness, too. 

_“From under the sink he drew a zinc pail which contained a quantity of blood.”_

Not sure about this one. Lube, maybe, or… Well. Who knows or dares to dream?

 _“Then from the table he took a platter heaped with small pieces of charred bone.”..._  
_...’What do you make of these bones?’"_  
_"A lamb, I should say, or a kid."_

That is (or was, before it was burnt up) porn. Probably of young men, possibly of boys.

Now. If you were a sub in suburban Victorian England, and your Dom’s life got ruined (maybe murder, maybe just exposure) by a jealous (or psycho, or greedy, or self-loathing) neighbor (maybe ex), and you thought it necessary to flee your home in a hurry, maaaaybe you’d go back (when you hoped the coast would be clear) to try to dispose of any incriminating possessions that you left behind in your flight.

Part of the fun of this theory is that makes a lot of what Holmes says in _tToSP_ pretty darn sarcastic.

_“A chaotic case, My dear Watson,” said Holmes over an evening pipe. “It will not be possible for you to present it in that compact form which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path.”_

Anyway. I don’t know, it’s just an idea. But really, this is the first way I’ve ever found for this story to make sense to me. Consider:

_“I’m sure, Watson, a week in the country will be invaluable to you,” he remarked. “With a spud, a tin box, and an elementary book on botany, there are instructive days to be spent.” He prowled about with this equipment himself, but it was a poor show of plants which he would bring back of an evening._

What? Given that they were in the middle of an investigation, what the _heck_ is this about? Holmes is wandering about Esher alone collecting plant specimens? Poorly? And recommending the practice to Watson? That’s worse than out of character, it’s nonsensical. But if it’s a metaphor for the differences between what gays and straights find when they go prowling about the same “respectable” country town, and that maybe the Watsons of the world would do well to open their eyes a bit…  
well then.

So if you're interested (and not too sick of the story yet), try reading it again from that perspective and let me know what you think.


End file.
